On the morning after the 2016 presidential election, Thomas E. Ricks, along with much of the nation, awoke with some concerns: What kind of nation did we now have? Is this what was designed or intended by the nation's founders? And so, trying to get as close to the source as he could, Ricks decided to go back and read the philosophy and literature that shaped the founders' thinking, and the letters they wrote to one another debating these crucial works - among them the Illiad, Plutarch's Lives, and the works of Xenophon, Epicurus, Aristotle, Cato, and Cicero. For though much attention has been paid to the influence of English political philosophers closer to their own era, like John Locke, the founders were far more immersed in the literature of the ancient world. The first four American presidents came by their classical knowledge in different ways: Washington absorbed it mainly from the elite culture of his day; Adams learned it through the laws and rhetoric of Rome; Jefferson immersed himself in classical philosophy, especially Epicureanism; and Madison, both a groundbreaking researcher and a deft politician, spent years studying the ancient world like a political scientist. Each of their experiences, and their distinctive learning styles and choices, played an essential role in the formation of the United States. In examing how and what they studied, and in viewing these men through the unusual lens of the classical world, Ricks is able to draw arresting and fresh portraits of men we thought we knew.